Time's Veil
by The Fifth Maurauder
Summary: Sirius's brush with death leaves him with another chance at life in a time he thought was gone forever. Knowing what he knows, he has the opportunity to change absolutley everything...the question is...does he really want to?
1. Through the Veil

Title: Time's Veil

Author: The Fifth Marauder

Rating: PG-13 for mild language

Date Started: June 22, 2004

The last thing Sirius saw was Harry's face. He'd been pale, his bright green eyes opened wide with shock, surprised, as Sirius himself was, that he could be so easily dispatched. He fell, his own long, black hair seeming to feather around him as he dropped behind the veil. It was like falling through space. Closing his grey eyes tightly, he braced his back for the inevitable shock of stone floor against spine and shoulder blade, but none came. He was motionless, suspended on nothing, he threw his hands out behind him to grasp for the ground, for anything that he could stand on, lean on, hold on to. Anything stable.

"Sirius," an all-too-familiar voice said his name cheerfully, but he refused to open his eyes. He didn't want to see that wayward, smiling face. The second he did, he'd know he was dead, that this was real. "Sirius, open your eyes," the voice said again, and he cried out in panic, "No!" There was a pause, and then the voice laughed. "You afraid, Padfoot?" Sirius said nothing for what felt like an eternity. He didn't know where he was, what was happening, what _had_ happened. "Yes, I'm afraid," He answered.

Feeling the shock of someone sitting beside him, he realized at last that he was on solid ground. Not stone, as the floor onto which he should have fallen, but highly polished hardwood. "You blacked out," The voice said, and Sirius shifted slightly. "I…where am I?" He asked, finally submitting and opening his eyes. It was as he'd expected. James sat beside him, peering intently down at him with an expression of mixed worry and curiosity. "…Am I in heaven?" he inquired in a whisper, and James grinned. "Why Padfoot, I didn't know you thought so much of me." He chuckled, flashing his token boyish smile. "No, you're not in heaven. Just in class. Moony and Wormtail went to get Madame Pomfrey when you collapsed."

It took Sirius a long moment before he realized just where he was. He was on the floor of the History of Magic classroom at Hogwarts. James was just a boy. He couldn't have been older than sixteen. Looking at him, confused, and utterly shaken, Sirius sat up as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Where's Harry?" He demanded, and James all but leapt back. "Harry?" His friend asked, chuckling lightly. "Who're you talking about, Sirius?" Sirius stood as quickly as he could, but had to clap his hands over his head as a searing pain scorched through his brain, and sent him to his knees again. "I need to find him! Where is he?!" He cried out.

Feeling James's hands shaking his shoulders, he gasped slightly, eyes wide, terrified that he'd lost his godson. He hadn't thought to find it peculiar that James was here, very much alive, and the image of his boyhood. "James," He breathed, staring into his friend's worried brown eyes as if he'd just noticed he was there. "James…you're…" Sirius took a step back, practically panicking now, his hands at his sides. "You're alive." He whispered.

James raised his eyebrows, staring for a moment, before laughing lightly and saying, "Of course I'm alive, Padfoot. Why shouldn't I be?" Sirius shook his head slightly, watching his friend, gaping at him, really. "But…but you were dead. I…I saw-" He was cut off, however, when a light, but still forceful voice said, "You must have hit your head harder than we thought, Padfoot." Sirius turned to face the door, and there was Remus, one hand on the doorframe, his mouth slightly open, peering at Sirius through his mop of untidy brown bangs. "Moony," he breathed, and stood again, slower this time.

"He's in here, Madame Pomfrey," Another voice just outside the door said. It was a squeaky voice, awkward and quiet. "He fell out of his chair just as the lesson was ending," Sirius recognized that voice, but waited until the speaker appeared at the door before he dashed forward, screaming, tearing for Peter Pettigrew's throat. A surprisingly strong arm grasped him around the middle, pulling him back, and he turned his head sharply to glare into James's startled eyes. "Padfoot, what's the matter with you?!" His friend demanded, his glasses askew, sliding down the bridge of his lightly freckle-dusted nose.

Peter, surprised, had fallen back against the doorframe, and now Remus helped him to his feet, and Madame Pomfrey started forward. "Mr. Black!" She puffed, "Is that any way to repay your friend for running the length of the castle to fetch me? Now sit down, and we'll have a look at you." Sirius didn't sit, however, he lashed out against James's hold again, and snarled, "I'll never be thankful! After all, isn't fetching what you're good at, Peter? Fetching like the dog you are!" Remus let out a light, airly laugh as Peter stared, thunderstruck, at Sirius. Even James cracked a smile at the irony of his friend's statement, holding Sirius close from behind, bracing his legs for him to jump out again.

"Sit down, Mr. Black!" Madame Pomfrey snapped again, and James yanked Sirius back into one of the desks. "He hit his head, you say, Mr. Pettigrew?" She directed her question at Peter, who went very red and nodded fervently. "Yes, ma'am," Remus said politely. One look at his highly polished prefect badge told Sirius that they were in their fifth year at Hogwarts…before Remus had let his badge fall into disrepair, and the year they became Animagi.

Ten minutes later, when Madame Pomfrey had checked him from head to toe, she proclaimed that there was nothing physically wrong with Sirius, but he should go back to his dormitory to rest, and maybe clear his head a little. In the corridor, Sirius pushed his hand through his hair, very surprised to find it cropped short, as he wore it when he was a boy. What was going on, here? James came up on his right, Peter and Remus on his left. "Padfoot, are you feeling alright?" Remus asked quietly, "You went a little crazy back there…" Peter lifted his frightened, watery eyes to Sirius, but said nothing.

"This is all a dream," Sirius proclaimed, shrugging. "There's no way any of this could be possible." James shook his head slowly, reaching for his friend's shoulder. "Sirius, you just need to lay down. When you're rested up, we'll talk about your dream," He said, a touch of laughter rising to his voice.

Sirius lay up in the Gryffindor dormitory, quite awake for someone who was supposed to be sleeping. He stared at the canopy of his four-poster, narrowing his eyes at the slightly billowing crimson fabric. This was ridiculous. He had to be dreaming…had to be…asleep, dead, whatever he was. He could still see Harry's blood streaked and pale face, Lily's eyes boring into his own grey ones as he fell. Harry…what must be going through his head now? Did he believe Sirius dead? He had no way of knowing.

Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he hopped to his feet, noticing with a touch of glee that he was full of energy, not like he usually was. He really was a boy again, and it exhilarated him to no end. Pacing the dormitory he remembered so clearly in his mind, he approached the window, peering out onto the lush Hogwarts grounds. The Whomping Willow swayed ominously in the slight spring breeze, and Sirius sighed lightly. Somehow…this had to be a dream. Lily and James were dead. Peter was Lord Voldemort's most trusted servant. Thinking of Peter, Sirius's lip twitched in a slight snarl.

If this really was his past…if he'd really somehow skipped backward in time, he had to do something about that rat, and soon. Nobody knew exactly when it was Peter Pettigrew turned over to the dark side. Sirius was so preoccupied with his musings that he didn't notice the dormitory door open and close behind him. "Padfoot?" James's voice said softly, and Sirius startled, and then slowly turned. And then, there was James. Sirius never told anyone exactly how much he missed his deceased best friend. The closest he'd ever come was two years earlier, during he and Harry's first confrontation in the Shrieking Shack.

"James," He said with an awkward smile, and James, upon seeing his face, laughed lightly. "You look like an old man when you do that, Padfoot." James told him, laughing, and Sirius shrugged, muttering, "You have no idea…" James looked up with a mild smile. "What was that?" "Nothing."

"What was your deal today, Sirius?" James asked, coming up beside Sirius by the window. He spoke in a whisper, as not to wake any more of the dormitory's residents. Sirius shook his head slowly. "Honestly, you wouldn't believe me if I told you." He said quietly, and James raised his eyebrows, obviously skeptical. "Try me." He said, and Sirius said, "I'd rather not."

"Peter's really spooked," The messy-haired boy said, grinning a little and craning his neck to peer out through the slightly rippled glass. "You looked like you wanted to kill him back there." Sirius shrugged, but said nothing to reply to that. Did he want to kill Peter? Surely. But was this Peter yet the Peter he despised? He sighed a little bit, stepping back slowly.

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked James casually, smiling slightly. If he was back in his past, as it seemed, he'd have infinate time to think about Peter. Right now, he wanted to be with James, talk once more with his truest friend as he so missed talking to him in the years after his untimely death. "It's after hours," Replied James with a small smirk, and Sirius looped an arm around his friend's neck, dragging him toward the dormitory door. "Never stopped us before, Prongs!"

(A/N: Hi there. ;; Yes, I haven't written in such a long time...goodness...but I have an unhealthy obsession with Sirius, so I maintain that he's NOT dead...and this fic is the adaptation of what I think should have happened. XD;; Um. Anyway. Please review if you want me to continue...I promise there'll be lots of Snape and Lily and Remus and people other than Sirius and James! :D Proomise! Thanks for reading, in any case!)


	2. Adjusting

Title: Time's Veil

Author: The Fifth Marauder

Rating: PG-13 for mild language

Date Started: June 22, 2004

Chapter Two

Chapter Started: December 14, 2004

The Great Hall was just as Sirius remembered it. Even when he'd sneaked into the castle the year of his escape from Azkaban, he'd noticed a few minor differences from his own school days. This, though, this was leaping back in time. It wasn't at all like his hazy memories of the school he'd so loved. This was _it_. Remus sat beside him at the Gryffindor table come breakfast, and James and Peter took their usual seats opposite them.

Little Peter ran his pudgy hands over his bed-mussed corn-coloured hair, still warily avoiding Sirius's eye. Sirius himself couldn't concentrate on food, or even on glaring at the small boy across from him. He was too enthralled by the sight of everything and everyone around him. Each time James would kick at him under the table to get him to pay attention, his heart gave a gleeful leap. His best friend was back again, alive, and he no longer had to hide himself away in the shadows, nor watch from afar and live in complete solitude. He didn't have to keep out of the thick of things. These were the days when he _was_ the thick of things.

"Alright lads," James was saying, leaning forward, one elbow on the tabletop, his hand gesturing like mad. Sirius grinned, watching him. He'd forgotten how Prongs used to move and speak with such enthusiasm. "The full moon's coming up, just about a week to go. I was thinking --" James stopped talking quite abruplty, and blinked his wide hazel eyes, staring at something behind Sirius.

Turning curiously, Sirius smirked, then shook his head. Lily Evans was passing by, on her way to the opposite side of the long house table. James's eyes followed her every move with near obsession until she was completely out of sight. "Did you see that look she gave me?" he asked, a smug smile curling his lips as he sat up straighter, ruffling his fingers through his hair. "The one of disgust? Yeah, we saw it." Said Remus, smiling a bit and shutting the book he had propped on his lap under the table.

Sirius laughed along with Peter, and James rolled his eyes, waving his hand dismissivley. "Don't be stupid," He said. "She's playing hard to get. Girls do that, you know. She'll come around." Moony leaned back a bit, turning his attention back to his now-cold sausage, spearing a bit with his fork. "Whatever you say, James." He commented quietly, and Peter giggled a little. The blonde was silenced almost instantly as Sirius raised his grey eyes, shimmering with distaste, up to him.

If the other two noticed the small exchange, they said nothing. It wasn't unheard of for Wormtail to grate on Sirius's nerves. James's, too, on occasion. Padfoot turned his chin down a bit, ignoring his full plate in favour of his thoughts. Maybe his whole adult life had been a dream? Peter was, after all, one of his best friends, back in school. The more he grew used to his schoolboy mentality, the more absurd it seemed that his small friend would ever betray them. Pausing, he was almost completely ready to pass off everything he remembered as a mere nightmare. It was then that he remembered Azkaban, and that familiar chill ran through him.

No. No, Azkaban was too horrible to be an incarnation of his subconsious.

"Padfoot, going to faint again?" James's teasing voice suggested, and Sirius glanced up at him, rolling his eyes. "Git," he accused, shifting his shoulders. His friend grinned that bright, toothy expression of his. "You paled, suddenly." He told Sirius, and the other animagus simply shrugged. "I'm tired," He replied, fishing for an excuse and finding only that a plausible one.

Remus brushed his mop of chocolate-coloured hair from his eyes, shifting his book into the crook of his arm. "We should get going," He commented quietly, turning clear eyes from his watch up to Sirius, who looked over at him with an expression that could only pass for a mixture between irritation and amusement. His studious friend simply smiled in reply, and moved to stand. "Divination," he said, to clarify. Moony was the only one who kept James and Sirius from skipping classes completely. The two were clever, but with their cleverness came that foolish haughtiness of a boy who thinks he knows everything.

Peter stood after James did, and Sirius was the last to rise. He took another long look around the Great Hall, shifting his robes around his legs. James glanced up at him, half-way down the table. "Padfoot! What are you ogling? You act like you haven't seen the place in years!"

Sirius couldn't remember ever having been so interested in any class he'd attended as a boy as he was this day, with Divination. Why had Voldemort gone into the Department of Mysteries? For a prophecy...What about that prophecy...? The black-haired youth watched Professor Mugwart with rapt attention, so much that even Remus had to comment.

Leaning over, the werewolf whispered to him under their professor's nasal tone, "Why interested, suddenly? Term's almost over and _now_ you decide you want to listen?" Sirius turned his head to the side a little, shifting in the armchair in which he sat. He, Remus, James and Peter were seated around a table at the back of the classroom, nearest to the window. "Well," He said, inclining his head a bit to speak closer to Moony's ear. "When I have a question, I want it answered." He left it at that, and his friend blinked, puzzled.

"What are you talking about?" James asked, raising his eyebrows and turning his eyes up from the table (onto which he was scratching 'JP LE') and watching Sirius intently. "You said it yourself, Divination's the most useless of magical practices. Then you went on to tell us about how you thought we should magic up some new prank toys and stop wasting our education." This prompted a laugh from Peter and Sirius, and Remus lifted a hand to his mouth to stifle his own chuckle.

Sirius leaned back a bit, folding his arms over his chest, all traces of laughter gone from his face. He peered down at his knees, shifting in the denim of his jeans. "Well maybe...now I'm not so sure." He couldn't very well tell James that he was trying to prevent his early demise. No, what Sirius did to change their undeserving future had to be done alone.

But where was he to start?

The Gryffindor common room was abuzz with excitement, as it usually was on Friday evenings. It was a Hogsmede weekend, or so said the notice posted on the wall beside adds like 'Dungbombs, cheap!' and 'Broom for sale, just slightly broken.'

"This should be fun," James commented in a growling undertone, and Sirius smirked a bit. They stood close together, James leaning against the stone hearth of the fireplace, Sirius beside him, his back to the wall. Remus had engrossed himself in another book after shining and re-shining his Prefect's badge, and Peter was busy setting up a game of exploding snap on the floor beside Remus's chair.

Sirius stretched absently, yawning. He was deep in reflection, barely hearing his friend when he spoke. Wracking his brain, Sirius was determined to dig up every memory that his adult mind retained from his fifth year at Hogwarts. But there was a growing anxiety in the pit of his stomach whenever he looked at James. How long would this little time travel trip last? Would he come back, suddenly and adult again, on the other side of the veil?

He shivered at the thought. Then what would this have accomplished? He needed to change _something_, if not for his sake, or for James's, than for Harry's. Yes, Harry's...that boy deserved to know his father. He deserved to see his mother's face, to know her smile, and not only from photographs. Sirius's abandoned his thoughts and worries, and focused his mind on memories of Harry. He couldn't remember the last time he saw his godson smile, and that troubled him deeply.

"James?" he said quietly, in what was almost a helpless tone, so alien that James turned his head sharply, eyebrows raised. "Yeah?" his messy-haired friend said in reply, standing up and letting his folded arms fall to his sides. "What's the date?" Sirius asked him, smirking a bit, and James rolled his eyes, all surprise and concern melting from his face. "November the twenty-third," He answered, chuckling. "Don't _do_ that." He added, and Sirius shrugged, smiling.

Then he paused. "Did you say November twenty-third?" he asked tensely, his entire body seeming to go rigid. "Yeah, Padfoot. Why?" Said James, reaching out a bit as if to touch Sirius's shoulder. "What's the matter? You look sick." Sirius just froze, memories flooding back to him all at once. The weekend of November the twenty-third was the date of the Marauders' closest call of all time. Tomorrow was the day that Hogwarts almost saw the last of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.

(A/N: Woo! Cliff-hanger-y! Whew, it was more difficult to write this chapter than the first one... ;; I have all these plans for later on in the story, but the beginning is still kind of coming to me. Yes. So. Next chapter, bum bum bu-u-u-um...some bad stuff happens. :D I want to thank everybody who reviewed. I love you! o Reviews make me happy because I'm prideful and I'm a horrible person. :3 Yes, so, sorry this chapter jumps around so much...it's hard to keep the Marauders in one place. xX; I'm going to try and update this fic at least weekly, 'cause it's going to be a long story. Please keep reading. :D)


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